Neuwirth The Critic Bestows A Thumbs Up

NAMES & FACES

There doesn't figure to be any harsher critic of the work of Bebe Neuwirth than Neuwirth herself.

"I know when I'm bad, I know when I'm good, and I know when I'm everything in between," she says. "I don't have any delusions of grandeur or delusions of failure."

Ask to rate her best work and Neuwirth can rattle off "a couple of things I've done that I'm proud of," but the effort makes her uncomfortable.

She has good things to say about Tadpole, a comedy that has been netting Neuwirth some of her best film notices for her comic turn as a cradle-robbing chiropractor.

"I think I did all right on that," she says. "Yeah, I think it was pretty good. I don't cringe when people say, `I saw Tadpole.' And I learned quite a bit on that because I had no idea who that woman was.

"I knew the script was great, I knew the character was funny, but I couldn't link her with anyone," she says. "I had no relationship with that woman. There was no way that we were alike that I could see at all. Gary [Winick], the director, knew exactly who this woman was and he kept describing her perfectly. I still didn't know her.

"It was helpful when I saw the clothes, when I knew how my hair and makeup were going to be, when I saw those awful fur coats. I don't wear fur and there were two in the movie," she says.

Neuwirth's Lilith, Frasier Crane's icy ex-wife on Cheers and Frasier, earned her two Emmy awards. She won two Tony awards 11 years apart in a pair of Bob Fosse projects: Sweet Charity and Chicago.